


The Perks of Being Eternal

by beforethecalm



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2595722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beforethecalm/pseuds/beforethecalm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She just wants to know that she's worth fighting for, that their friendship meant as much to him as it did to her and she's not that easy to walk away from because for once in her whole entire life, Caroline Forbes is enough of a reason for someone to stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perks of Being Eternal

"You can't ignore me forever."

The voice comes from her left.  She's in the crappy diner she's spent the majority of her time in lately, book open on the tabletop.  She's read the same paragraph three times, trying to make sense of some mystical witch-y thing that so far?  Refuses to sink in.

It's got even less chance with him standing there, being all pensive and broody and waiting for her to react.

"Actually, that's one of the perks of being eternal," she points out, not looking up, "I pretty much _can_."

He ignores her words - a brush off if ever she's given one - and slides into the booth opposite.  _Now_ she looks up and gives him a glare that would have lesser men quaking in their shoes.

"What do you want Stefan?  In case you haven't noticed, I'm kinda busy..." She waves a hand between them, books piled on the table, her food untouched, forgotten.

"I want us to talk."

That's how he plays it.  No bones about it, plaintive look on his face like he can erase the last four months of crap by just sitting there.  Talking.  And she _**so**_ doesn't think so.

"You're about four months and a bajillion phone calls too late for that."

Stefan's jaw tightens and he honest-to-God winces and there it is; a reaction - something that doesn't involve him walking away or declaring, in that way that he's fine tuned to a freakin' art these days that he wants to start over, _**needs**_ to start over, without any reminder of Mystic Falls, his brother... Without _her_.

"Caroline--"

"What?"  She snaps. She's been balancing on this particular precipice for two days now - fresh from _I don't want to be friends any more_ and thrown into defending her choice to not go back to Whitmore.  Again.  "What, Stefan?  What can you possibly say to me that's gonna make this better?"

"I missed you."

He says it quiet, voice gentle, and it's kind of sad -- _really_ sad -- how a month ago, hell, even a couple of weeks, she'd have turned herself in knots just to hear that.  To have him show up on her doorstep and just be _home_ in this place that was only supposed to be her home for, like, a couple of semesters a year or whatever - not permanently.

"You _**missed**_ me?"  Her voice is a whisper away from a hiss, her eyes narrowing.  She slaps her hand on the table, beyond pissed, and Stefan continues to stare at her as she talks.  "I never went anywhere, Stefan.  I've been here this whole time looking for leads to take us back to Mystic Falls, thinking **you** were looking for Bonnie and Damon and for what?  To finally find you shacked up with She Who'll Become a Newbie Vamp thanks to freakin' Enzo and have you drop her off on my doorstep after I ask you to stay and you walk away from me?"

He tries to interrupt her little tirade, opens his mouth, leans forward a little but Caroline isn't done - she's not even close.

"And the kicker is?  You don't even say sorry, you don't even buy a clue into the fact that hey, maybe you hurt me.  That maybe, while you were doing this whole push-everybody- _ **ever**_ -away act, the people who needed you needed to just be there for you too.  All you had to do was pick up the phone - just once.  Just tell me _once_ that you weren't coming back.  Would I have tried to change your mind? Of course I would, but that's what friends do - they don't let their other friends deal alone and they sure as hell don't do it by cutting them out of their lives completely."

Stefan's mouth tightens and his eyes slide to the side, away from her.  This was exactly what she didn't want - to word vomit all over him, to launch at him in full flow, because after everything, she's tired.  She's tired of defending her choices to Elena, Tyler and Alaric, in turn - of looking for Bonnie and the way back to Mystic and finding nothing.  She's tired and wishing for some magical fix all that, with every passing moment, looks like it's getting further away from her.

"I had to leave," he settles on finally.  "I chased every lead Alaric gave me for two months and every time I came up empty."

"You think you're the only one who knows what that feels like?"  Caroline points to her books, expression bordering on incredulous.  "Over the last four months I've read more books on magic than I can count, books I can barely even pronounce trying to find some tiny link between magic and Travelers and stupid spells. Trying to find something that will help us take back our town and that whole time?  What I really should have been doing was looking for Bonnie and Damon too because, like you said to me in the woods the other day, _you gave up_."

She doesn't miss the haunted look, the guilt.  It's like a Stefan Salvatore special, where he takes everything on his shoulders, even things that aren't his to take.  But this _**is**_ his to take.  He left.  Not just this crazy fight that they seem to be in every single day of their lives - but her too.  He left her too.

"I'm glad Damon's back, Stefan.  I really am.  And I'm glad you've figured out the fact that you can somehow stand to be around the people who care about you again but when I said that I didn't want to be friends any more, the truth is... I don't know _**how**_ to be.  I don't.  I can't tell you how to fix this because I don't know how.  You lost Damon and Lexi and I can't imagine how much that hurt but you still had _**me**_.  And you still left without giving me or whatever our friendship even meant to you a backward glance.  Not one."

His shoulders slump and it's a tiny thing, a move that if she didn't know him so well (and at this juncture, she really wishes she didn't) she wouldn't be able to recognize that this is him giving up.

And that's it all over - even if he's not walking away this time, he's giving up.  She doesn't want a grand gesture, she doesn't want him running after her and declaring that he'll never leave her again because how could she trust it - how could she?

She just wants to know that she's worth fighting for, that their friendship meant as much to him as it did to her and she's not that easy to walk away from because for once in her whole entire life, Caroline Forbes is enough of a reason for someone to stay.

Sighing, Caroline stands, pushes her books into her bag and pulls her jacket around her a little closer. She's lost a lot these last few months.  She _knows_ he did too -- she's not saying that, but... First Bonnie, then Stefan and then Bonnie all over again with three words from Damon - _she's at peace -_ and honestly?  She's tired of that too.  Losing people.

And she'll be damned if she'll put herself in the path of losing Stefan when something _else_ goes wrong in their crazy, messed up lives.

She steps out of the booth, walks away, even makes it out the door before his hand closes around her wrist, halting her escape.

The panic in his eyes slices through her when she turns back, makes parts of her that have ached for months ache more.  But she meant what she said in there - she can't tell him how to get past this, how to make it up to her because she doesn't know _**how**_.

"Caroline, I'm trying.  And I _**am**_ sorry - you have no idea how much."

"I believe you," she whispers, the lump in her throat making it near-impossible to talk, impossible to breathe, "I just don't think it's enough."

She doesn't wait to see the look in his eyes, how he reacts to that.  For the second time in her life, Caroline pulls herself away from him but not before the first tear slips and that, she _won't_ have. She's done crying over him -- at least, she's done crying for him where he can see. She's little more than a blur when she leaves him standing outside that diner, hands on his hips again, head hung like he's sad and broken and just as tired as her.

~ Fin ~


End file.
